Published on
November 3, 2006 in
Google.
This is the first time I noticed this: an email in my Gmail with Excel attachments offers me the option to view the document in Google Spreadsheets.
Of course I tried it and indeed, the spreadsheet shows up in a webbased form. It doesn’t work for all spreadsheets though (I got an error message on the second document), but it is a nice extra feature to Gmail and Spreadsheets.
Now they could add this for Powerpoint (via Picasa slideshow?), Visio and all OpenOffice formats, and they just pretty much made the Word/Excel/Visio viewer applications obsolete. Even more importantly: it works on all platforms. Nice one!
Also featured on blogs.zdnet.com, blog.searchenginewatch.com and blog.outer-court.com.
Published on
November 3, 2006 in
nokia.
Do you remember the days before mobile phones? When being on the road meant that you could not be reached? When curly phone cords entangled in a sort of DNA structure? When you had to type the number without screen feedback and when you missed one digit, you had to start over? And when you received a call, you had no idea who it was? Nowadays we’re all used to Caller ID (or CLI), some of us even have pictures of callers popping up. I don’t know about you, but I like Caller ID, and I don’t like it when people turn it off (for some reason a lot of ’sales’ people seem to do that). If I didn’t have this one customer who blocks their numbers, I would never answer the phone on a ‘Private number’.
Five reasons why you should NOT switch caller-ID off:
- the called person can screen your call. That is not necessarily negative, there is such a thing as ‘a bad time to call’.
- the called person can easily call you back. No need to spell out your phone number twice on the voice mail.
- if you called 5 times without getting through, both of you know that. Without Caller ID, those 5 missed calls could be from anyone, and so you have no reason to complain if it is not treated as an urgent call.
- disabling your Caller ID makes you look like a telemarketing agent or stalker. No one likes getting calls from those.
- a lot of people don’t like getting anonymous phone calls (that includes me). You’re starting the conversation with one participant already annoyed.
I don’t think I’m the only one: on the Nokia forums, most discussions on Caller ID are about how to enable it, not how to get rid of it. This is how you switch it ON:
Activate Incoming (CLIP): *30# [SEND]
Activate Outgoing (CLIR): *31# [SEND]
(via gsm-security.net)
How about you? Do you also think switched off caller-ID is impolite?
Published on
November 2, 2006 in
Belgium.
Henny Heyndrickx, the boss of Tabaknatie, is very worried about the ruthless discrimination of smokers in Belgium. With the ban on smoking in restaurants coming into effect in less than 60 days, he wants to set up a list of ’smoker-friendly’ restaurants. This means: restaurants that have a smoking room (* see below) installed.
His quote (translated by me):
“Often it is important for our business partners to enjoy a cigarette at the table in between courses. (…) We guarantee restaurants that can still allow smoking thanks to extra measures, a mentioning on our website, and also that we will take advantage of every occasion to promote these ’smoke-friendly’ restaurants amongst our customers and relations.”
I can live with the limited space (of a smoking room), but this is really a boycot of the cigarette. What else? Belgium is a leader in the battle against smoking, together with some other countries. Apparently everything should be banned here. After tobacco we might get a ban on whiskey.”
(de Standaard)
Continue reading ‘Thank you for smoking’
Recent Comments